Uluru – from Sunset to Sunrise and more

September 26th & 27th

An early start to the day had us up at ~5:30 a.m. to get ready for a lengthy bus trip out to Uluru starting at 7:00 a.m.

Our bus driver was Peter and he was with us for most of three days. He starts off by telling us its only two right turns to Uluru, except he neglects to tell how far it is between those two turns. Next, he starts to tell us about Pine Gap, which is located quite close to Alice Springs and what it is. Turns out it is part of the Five Eyes alliance between five countries of which Canada and Australia are part of. Anyway we drive right by the place which is located a fair way off the main highway but well within the range of Alice Springs. A note back to arrival at Alice Springs airport, when we were deplaning I looked down the runway and saw a C130 style military transport plane landing on the main runway, now I understand what it was doing here.

Stuart’s Well is the first pit stop that features a young camel and two emus, a caged cockatoo. Entertaining to watch an American tourist trying to buy a bottle of coke and a grizzly old cashier that did not know the exchange rate for US to AUS dollars. Ended up in the cashier’s favour as neither did the American tourist. Think he ended paying $4 US for his bottle of coke.

See a lot of red sand along the journey to Uluru. The sand is red because of iron which oxidizes when exposes to air,

The next stop was Erldunda, quite a busy stop as it is at a crossroads where everyone stops for gas, food, water, and tiny flies. The flies are the only free items of anything needed here. Oh, there are a few more emus picking for food on the ground in a large pen as well.

We had a lesson on how the earth was created followed by a description of how large Uluru actually is, seems a good analogy here is an iceberg where 90% is below the surface of the water, Uluru is much like that. Peter also gave us a lesson on aboriginal art and how they only recently were given rights to the design and artwork but yet earn little from royalties.

We stopped for a photo shoot of Mt Conner and Lake Amadeus which is a Salt Lake that caused explorers problems when they tried to cross what seemed to be solid ground but was actually a thin crust that the equipment broke through and sank in the mud below. They never did cross but eventually found a way around which was a much longer route.

We arrived at Yulara dropped off our luggage and got back on a bus to head to Uluru’s cultural orientation center. The stop at the interpretive center was followed by a slow drive around Uluru to view but not to photograph the “living cultural landscape”, as I read somewhere, that is sacred to the Aboriginal community.

While there we saw people climbing to the top of Uluru. They followed a steep line along a spine holding onto a chain in some places. Watching people coming down made it appear to be a quite difficult descent. As of October 26th, people will no longer be able to climb Uluru.

We end the tour around Uluru with a Ranger-guided Mala walk where we learn about the park’s geology, the natural environment and cultural heritage from the people that live there. We heard some very interesting stories around how Uluru and Kata Tjuta were formed and how the unusual markings on the surface were made plus much more.

Some of the details of the site I covered in bullet form to reduce writing and reading.

• With sunset approaching, we made our way over to a site set aside for the event, we have a glass of wine or two or three and some snacks while we waited for the sun to set.
• Once that was done we were back on the bus for the Aussie Barbie and some education on stars and the solar system.
  • The steaks were good as was the sample of Skippy (kangaroo meat),
  • The shrimp was tasty,
  • The education of the stars features the use of two laser pointers, one that was good for 8 miles and the other for 12 miles, they had to notify the local air traffic control when they used them,
  • When all was said and done back on the bus to the hotel for a shower and then sleep as we had to be up for sunrise meaning a 4:30 a.m. wake up call.